Today for Show and Tell, I've brought a tiny marvel of nature: a single snowflake. I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary, boring molecule of water, just like every other one, when you bring it in the classroom. And now, while the analogy sinks in, I'll be leaving you drips and going outside." ~ Calvin, from Calvin & Hobbes

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

healing

Friday night my dear husband let me have a therapy session, he is such a trooper.

I hadn't cried since Tuesday for heaven's sake :) In my real life I haven't cried for years, although having babies did soften me up. When I was pregnant I would cry at Hallmark commercials, I thought something was wrong with me.

I talked a lot, he listened, nodded and even spoke briefly, he just listened. I probably just need someone to listen so I feel validated in some way to know that what happened to me and what I think really matters.

Something I said triggered the flood gates and I just cried. It was so good and so bizarre, I'm still trying to figure out why I am having crying jags but I know I need to cry for all the stuff I never did.

I just need to be human, I need to feel things.I closed off my emotions for so long, I was cold, I really was a snob, I joke about it but I can look back and see that I was harsh.

All I can say is I'm working on figuring out what is holding me back, why am I so controlling of some things? Why I am so uptight and expecting perfection?

I need to live and let go and learn and heal and move on.

I have forgiven my parents but I can't forget. My mom tried to NOT be her mom, I can see the cycle, my mom did do better.

The buck stops here, I am breaking the chain, the ties that bind are no longer relavent.

I have very distant relationships with my parents and I have tried to bridge the gap but it is so huge. I'm closer to my mom than I ever was and it really isn't close but I just can't deal with my dad. I love my parents, but I just don't relate, I am so different from dad that it's a chore to speak. I mean religion, politics, schooling are off limits.

I remember things they did when I was a kid and I wonder if they remember. I hesitate to share any specific events in public.

I'm not here to dwell or bring anyone down, I'm here to heal and be a good example for my children and anyone who can relate to my struggles.

8 comments:

You are blessed among women to have the hand of your Father on you in such tender and healing ways. Yes, you need to cry for all the stuff you never did. And you'll learn to laugh for new reasons, to have compassion where judgment previously resided - both with others and with yourself.

Have you read "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert? I'm listening to it in my car right now and there's a part in the second section in which the author finally releases the pain, bitterness, unforgiveness, etc. in her life. It's a great book so far and I recommend it.

It helped me to consciously do for Kirby (my first baby) things I wish my mom could have (or would have) done for me. When he got to do something I would have liked as a child, he was doing it for both of us.

It was very healing, and I was glad to give him as much peace and patience as I could. Of course I was a better mom with the next two, because I had practiced, but still I remember the internal dialog when it was just me and Kirby, and I forgave my mom for some things as I thought how nice it would've been had she had the courage and inspiration to go even MORE against what her parents had done to and with her.

I'm so glad you have Jason! He's awesome. BUT if the dang hurricane hadn't come - maybe I could've been your listening ear. I'm always available. I mean that. We can and are breaking the chains - little at a time by being parents that respect and love our kids - not putting them into positions we were left in -Let those feelings come up - at first it will feel like vomiting - but in the end you'll feel so much better.

Follow by Email

Learning Through Living

"It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong," he says, "but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life."~John Holt

Family

About Me

I'm married to my best friend. We have 4 beautiful children that we live and learn with everyday without the confines of school. I am very vocal and passionate about unschooling and freedom.I love watching my kids learn and grow each day. I am forever learning and questioning everything.

Followers

Rethinking Respect A Revolution

Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted. John Holt

Myspace

We are a family of six, we live and learn every day without the confines of school. This is going to be a place for me to share a little about our lives and about my opinions on things that matter to me. My kids learn naturally about what is important to them at the moment.

"True learning-learning that is permanent and useful,that leads to intelligent action and further learning, can arise only out of the experience, interest, and concerns of the learner" ~John Holt

Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

“It is as true now as it was then that no matter what tests show, very little of what is taught in school is learned, very little of what is learned is remembered, and very little of what is remembered is used. The things we learn, remember, and use are the things we seek out or meet in the daily, serious, nonschool parts of our lives.”~John Holt~ How Children Fail

Instead of Education~ John Holt

Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons' experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value."